The Tower A Novel (Sanctus)

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Shepherd opened his eyes to a world of silence.

For a few moments he had not the slightest idea where he was, or even who he was. He could see a floor strewn with debris and a

wall that disappeared in a jagged line three feet up from the ground. Beyond it was a whiteness that hurt his eyes and low grey

cloud.

The cloud.

His mind hooked onto the word – and he remembered.

He felt the cold all around and sinking into him – but not from beneath. There was something warm underneath him.

He forced himself up, willing his disconnected arms to move and push him up from the floor so he could see what it was. He feared

it might be blood, his blood, but it was just Franklin, unconscious and unresponsive. He felt cold, everything felt cold. He

needed to get them both away from here and into the warm.

He tried to stand but dizziness surged through him, driving him back down again. He focused on the chewed metal edge of what had

once been the outer wall, trying to fix on something long enough to stop the world from spinning.

A face appeared above the wall, shouting something his ears could not hear. He tried to raise his hand and call the man over. He

tried to push himself up so the man could see Franklin. But in the end these thoughts went no further than his brain and just the

effort of thinking was enough to let the darkness back in. His eyes closed. The coldness pressed down. And the whistling whine in

his damaged ears faded back to silence.

When Shepherd woke again it was with a gasp that hurt his throat.

He was lying on a bed in a white room, all wipe-clean linoleum and health awareness posters. One listed the symptoms of radiation

sickness, another the toxic properties of various chemicals. He had been here before. The same posters had graced the walls in his

research intern days when he had come to the sick bay to be treated for a mild helium burn.

Helium.

Burn.

The words pierced the bubble surrounding his brain and it popped in sudden and painful recollection.

‘Franklin!’ He sat up in bed and the room shifted as though it was floating.

White-coated figures surged through the door. They were all talking to him, at him, he could see their mouths moving but all he

heard was a waa-waa sound, their voices muffled and indistinct like his ears were waterlogged. He worked his jaw and they popped,

his hearing returning as suddenly and painfully as his memory had.

‘Please,’ he said, closing his eyes against the headache brightness and holding his hand up against the noise. ‘Could someone

tell me what happened to Agent Franklin.’

‘Nothing.’ Shepherd opened his eyes at the familiar voice and looked past the white coats who were now checking his blood

pressure and other vital signs. Franklin was leaning against the doorjamb, hands deep in his pockets, the smile back in place like

nothing had happened. ‘Well, I got blown up – there is that – but apart from that I’m pretty good. Better than you leastways,

but then you did take more of the blast than me.’ He turned to the medical personnel. ‘Now if you gentlemen are sure he ain’t

gonna die in the next few minutes, might I trouble you to leave us in private for a moment or two?’

Shepherd watched the medics leave and close the door. What was left of his coat was hanging on the back. It looked like cattle had

stampeded over it. The laptop case was propped against the wall next to it, untouched because he had left it behind in the

Explorer. Franklin sat down by the bed. ‘Looks like you saved my life back there. Guess I owe you a drink.’

Shepherd swallowed, his mouth still parched from the dry air he’d breathed so long in the cryo chamber. ‘I don’t drink.’ He

swallowed again, missing the look of mild disapproval that flitted across Franklin’s face. ‘What about Douglas?’

Franklin shook his head. ‘Missing. If he was anywhere in the facility then he’s dead for sure, but we haven’t found anything

yet. The explosion tore everything to pieces. Place looks more like some kind of modern sculpture now than a building. My feeling

is he wasn’t in there.’ He leaned forward and dropped his voice low. Shepherd could hardly hear it through the whine in his

ears. ‘That thing you saw on the computer before you dragged me out of there, I caught a glimpse of it myself, looked like some

kind of countdown.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I think it was primed to make the loading arm drop the helium tank once everyone was clear of the building. Was

there a fire?’

‘No, just an almighty bang.’

Shepherd remembered the crump and the cold, solid wave sweeping over them. ‘It was a pressure bomb. Helium doesn’t burn. It’s

inert. It’s one of the reasons they like using it as a coolant in facilities like this – much less dangerous. But if it’s

cooled to liquid form and you heat it up quickly it expands in an explosive manner.’

He looked down at his battered body stretching away on the examination table. At least he was in one piece. They were very lucky,

considering. ‘I’m guessing the Webb telescope mirrors that were in the testing chamber …’

‘Destroyed,’ Franklin nodded. ‘I doubt you could find a piece big enough to comb your hair with.’

Shepherd closed his eyes and let out a long breath. ‘They killed James Webb,’ he said out loud, as though mourning a friend.

‘What?’

‘The project, it’s dead. They won’t restart it again after this. The only reason it had managed to keep going so long was

because of existing commitments to the manufacturers. It was already billions over budget.’ Something occurred to him and he sat

up in bed, steadying himself as vertigo swam through his head. ‘We should issue warnings to all the major ground telescopes –

the VLA in New Mexico, the Keck II in Hawaii; and not just here but globally. If there’s some kind of “end of days” cult at

work here, targeting anything that’s staring at the sky, then it won’t be restricted to space telescopes or confined to the US.

’

‘Cool your jets, rocket man, already been done. There’s a high-level alert out on all international security networks with

copies of the postcards and details of the two attacks. All potential targets have been advised to beef up their security and

report to us if they have received similar threats.’

Shepherd swung his legs off the bed and down to the floor. He still felt dizzy but it was getting better. ‘What about telescopes

under construction? There’s a big one out in Arizona somewhere. I think the Europeans just started one somewhere in Chile. They

could be targets too.’

‘The alert went out to all national and private observatories, both operational and under construction. I may not have all your

fancy degrees, Shepherd, but I’m not an idiot. Oh by the way – who’s Melisa?’ Shepherd felt like he’d been punched in the

gut. ‘You were talking while you were out. Kept saying that name over and over, like you were calling for her, like maybe she was

lost. She got something to do with your missing two years?’

Shepherd looked at Franklin’s chest rather than his eyes.

Maybe he should just tell him. But then he knew so little about Franklin. He had no idea if he would honour his word or just feed

anything he told him straight back to personnel and end his career before it even got started. His eyes lit on the ID pinned to

Franklin’s jacket, his name written in full beneath a stern photo: Agent Benjamin Franklin.

‘What’s your real name?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Your name. I’m assuming that when you became an agent you got baptized just like I did.’ He looked up and finally met his

gaze. ‘Or were your parents very patriotic?’

‘Only people who know my real name are my family and a handful of people I trust.’

Shepherd smiled. ‘Give and take. You say you can’t trust me, but trust is a two-way street, Agent Franklin. How can I trust a

man who won’t even tell me his real name?’

The door opened behind Franklin but neither of them turned to look.

‘I got something,’ Ellery said, oblivious of the atmosphere in the room. ‘Best if I show you in my office.’ He pointed back

over his shoulder.

‘Be right there,’ Franklin replied, the chair legs scraping as he stood up. ‘After you, Agent Shepherd.’

Shepherd stood and the room shifted a little but not enough to make him sit down again. He grabbed the laptop bag from the floor

and his battered coat from behind the door. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You first.’